Braves Rumors: Strider’s historic pace, Soroka’s return effects, Red Sox trade target

Braves Rumors: Spencer Strider on historic strikeout pace not seen in a century

Matt Olson and the Braves lineup putting a hurting on the Phillies in primetime on Sunday Night Baseball was the talk coming out of that game as the first baseman slugged two home runs, the team put up 11 runs, and they secured the series victory over their NL East rivals and increased their lead in the division further.

In the midest of that, though, we got another stud performance from young Spencer Strider, who pitched six innings and was credited with the win as he allowed just two hits, one walk and two earned runs while striking out nine batters.

With his nine strikeouts on the year, Strider is the first player in MLB to 100 on the season — and is also the fastest to reach that mark in more than a century, since 1893 to be exact. He got his 100th strikeout exactly in 61 innings, surpassing the previous fastest by Jacob deGrom in 2021 (61.2 innings).

Just a few years ago, Strider was dancing in his car to Fitz & The Tantrums — now he can’t stop mowing down hitters.

On his current pace, Strider is set to end the season with 324 strikeouts. That would make him just the 20th player in MLB since 1900 to accomplish that feat and would mark just the 10th time since 2000 that a player has achieved that feat — Randy Johnson accounted for three of those with four straight 300K seasons from 1999-2002.

Strider bursted onto the scene last season as a rookie and we knew the kid was money. But what he’s doing in his sophomore MLB season is truly legendary stuff.